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| I remembered writing this at the last election and I thought it is particularly relevant once again. From Jeffery, 4 years ago
As I've previously established, I am not voting for Bush even though I consider myself a committed Christian. However, just 4 years ago, if you asked me who I would support between Bush and Gore, I would have said Bush because he seemed to be a more devout Christian. I, and many others, thought the reasoning was simple and easy; vote for the more devout Christian because he'll bring godly values to the office. In the 4 years since then, I've realized that there are many complex issues involved when it comes to religion and politics. Some of this I've learned in my classes especially on just war theory and (of all things) legalizing marijuana. But a detailed analysis of the Bible reveals that a Christian's job in politics is not necessarily to put all of God's laws into national law. Nowadays, we have several people in government that do feel like their job is to put God's law into the Constitution. Many Christian congressmen have lined up on the side of the conservative Republicans and supported "Family Values" platform. But remember, a little less than 2000 years ago, we had a similar situation as we have now. There was a group of upstanding, respectable heads of various religious denominations who were generally very devout followers of God. They loved his laws, studying them early in the morning before they go to work. Many of them worked to institute God's laws as the nation's laws and sometimes even creating laws to buffer people from breaking any scriptural laws. Yet, when Jesus came into this situation back then, he called them a brood of vipers and refused to associate himself with them. He convicted them on their lack of concern for the poor. He despised their brand of "holiness" which kept them disassociated from the sinners. Now, I am not saying these two situations are entirely analagous and my conclusion is not that conservative Republicans are the Pharisees of today. What I am trying to point out is that things are not always as they appear. Though many of us would assume that the world would be better off if we wrote the Ten Commandments into law, Jesus did not follow that tact. He, of all people, had the power, the legitimacy, the power and even the opportunity to establish a theocracy. Just one week before He died, he was given a grand parade and literally coronated. Instead he declined the earthly throne, fought often with the Pharisees, the lawmakers of the day and chose to live and commune with the lowly and immoral. Why does Jesus do this? Because he understood the purpose of the law his Father had given to his people. In Hebrews 10:1, it says, "The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming--not the realities themselves." These commandments were given to us to show how we have failed and thus lead us back to God with an attitude of repentance. It is there so that we may appreciate grace when we receive it. If we finish reading Hebrews 10, we see that Christ is the fulfillment of biblical law. The ultimate purpose of the law was to bring us back into reconciliation with God; all the guilt that comes from falling short of his standards is washed away with his forgiveness. Law was not given to enforce morals but rather to point us to the fact that it is by the grace granted us through Christ that we are saved. So where does this put us with concern to national law. I believe we should follow Christ's example and abandon our effort to legislate morality. Christ did not spend his time arguing in the synagogues about what laws to implement. Rather he went out to the people and demonstrated the gospel to them in concrete terms. Similarly we should not expect that law will bring people salvation. We are called to go out and bring people to Christ ourselves. Secular law is very different from Biblical law in that it is essentially utilitarian. It has no greater purpose than to allow people to live reasonably safe, peaceful lives in this national community. Implementing God's laws into the Constitution will not make this nation any more godly. Remember, Jesus, himself, technically broke the Sabbath to show that it is the heart that matters. Our scriptural laws are simply the sign that points us to Jesus. Therefore, let us follow Christ's example and reach people by showing them grace and changing their hearts rather than the laws that govern their behavior. | | |
| Although Prop 7 and 10 sounds like a good thing for the environment on the surface. But vote no on both of those because they will actually inhibit progress on climate change because it only rewards large producers of renewable energy at a time we need more diversification and innovation of these sectors. The devil is in the details. | | |
| I saw Al Gore speak last week at West Coast Green, a big Green Building conference in San Jose. It was interesting hearing him speak once again, exhorting the crowd to step up to the challenge of creating an environmentally friendly building industry. He hit all the clever sound bytes eliciting the knee-jerk responses of cheers and laughter at all the right points. Indeed it was inspiring to many as I left the auditorium talking to some friends who left excited and ready to change the world, just as Mr. Gore intended.
Unfortunately, I left with a sense of sadness. Not that I didn't appreciate what Al Gore was saying. I agreed with him wholeheartedly and his message that we are faced with an opportunity in this crisis is one that I repeated at my own education session a few days later. However, I know too much. I've gone to too many conferences and seminars for so many environmental issues that I know that humanity is in for some tough times. And the saddest part is we could fix it. But my opinion is we won't because the structures of our society and the faults of our human nature will prevent us from acting until it's too late.
First, there's the structures of our society. There is one single but fatal mistake our society has made when it comes to the environment. That is, our economy has not placed a value on the environment at all. Trees are only valuable when they are cut down to make into lumber. The price of plastic doesn't reflect the higher cancer rates due to the dioxins emitted in its production. Organic is more expensive because we've become too lazy to rotate crops properly to return nutrients to the earth and would rather use water-fouling fertilizers and hormone mimicking pesticides. Because we don't value what healthy forests, clean water and good air do for us, we count them as free resources, there for our exploitation. And if we don't exploit them, they are of no use to us so of course, we must harvest them like there's no tomorrow. Those companies who have done the best job of this are now some of the richest companies in the world and have the most powerful men in government dedicated to maintaining the status quo. The Oil and Gas Lobby, the Agriculture Lobby, the Logging Lobby, the Chemistry Lobby; these are the people who write the policy for America and dictate the course of the legislation. Since there is no money assigned to the environment, there are only small non-profits with shoestring budgets left to fight for the Earth and every message is drowned out in well-funded pseudo-science, reassuring ads of no harm and discrediting claims that the environmentalists are alarmists. Even the EPA, the very agency that is tasked to preserve the environment, has been weakened as executives of the oil, logging and chemicals industry are appointed to oversee the very fields they represent. Truly a case of the fox guarding the hen house. So we are left with the politicians arguing over whether to mandate 60 or 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 when the situation is increasingly dire now. And we are likely going to implement a cap and trade CO2 system that rewards those who have the most room to improve instead of a carbon tax that would reward those who have already taken steps in the right direction. This is all because the system makes it so that those with the money and power are those who have exploited the environment at every turn. And now that the economy has taken a nosedive, the environment has again taken a backseat. We worship at the altar of the economy and fret about its failure but it is ultimately a human construct that does not affect our physical conditions for survival. What will happen when the environment
fails? There
is no bailout for that situation.
Secondly, human nature is not renowned for looking ahead. Throughout history, civilizations have failed because of environmental limitations. The Roman Empire kept growing crops that could handle higher levels of salinity until one day they did not have anything else to grow. We have temporarily skirted these local constraints by expanding our definition of civilization to be the entire world so that if one area doesn't have enough food or water, they can import it from somewhere else. However, this means that the next time there is scarcity, it will affect the whole world and the collapse will be catastrophic. Sadly, we as people, are unable to think ahead because our tendency is to look at our short-term future. As long as humans focus on their limited scope, there is no urgency. I know this applies to me as well as I know I should have an earthquake kit ready but still my basket is incomplete. Only when the disaster hits, do we begin to act and then it is too late. What scares me is that people do not understand the complexity and urgency of climate change because of our linear reasoning. The thought is that it will just get warmer which isn't too bad for those in cooler climates. The flaw is that the weather system doesn't work linearly. There is good evidence that once the global temperature reaches a certain level, irreversible changes begin to happen because the salinity of the oceans will change, thereby causing changes in the current, which may lead to an Ice Age. Once we reach a tipping point, there is no going back. Since we have never seen this happen before, most people do not conceive of this as a possibility. But did the levies ever fail in New Orleans before? Did terrorists ever use planes in attacks before? This short-sidedness of man will likely be our downfall.
I know there are so many environmental issues besides the ones I have mentioned that deserve much more attention and notice and it is truly overwhelming. This may be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced yet very few are aware of the severity of the situation. Despite all the attention on "green" these days, what does it matter how well you are doing in this arena if we ultimately need to do better to avoid catastrophe. My opinion is that it will be too little, too late, especially if we continue to talk about it as a new way of consumption rather than limiting and reducing our usage of resources. However, until our economy rewards those who live renewably rather than on the inheritance of the earth, we will not get there.
I have not included supporting evidence for many of my examples but you can find evidence for these on the internet. These are the sad things I have learned in my few years of working in this field and this is just a small sample of the underpublicized environmental issues that I have learned about in my 5 years. From everything I know, this is not just an issue that will face our children or grandchildren. The consequences of our actions will affect us in our own lifetimes. Subsequently, I am sadly pessimistic, knowing that all I may be doing is rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Because all I've seen right now is that we are headed in the wrong direction. An apt analogy I heard once was that it's like we're trying to go to Canada but we're still heading towards Mexico. Let's hope I am wrong and that humanity can first recognize and then act in the face of this enormous challenge.
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